Greetings,
My report on SFD 2010 will be delayed because my car was vandalized last night. However, while waiting for the paperwork, I had this idea:
Women in Free and Open Source
Most distribution have a women group. How about an openSUSE women group? Hence, women ambassadors? I know many women in France that I can approach on this matter.
Just my 2 cents :-)
Cheers,
Jimmy
PS. Enjoy some of the pics of last Saturday : http://www.nui.fr/linpha/viewer.php?albid=14&stage=1
On Mon, 2010-09-20 at 23:41 +0200, Jimmy Pierre wrote:
Greetings,
My report on SFD 2010 will be delayed because my car was vandalized last night. However, while waiting for the paperwork, I had this idea:
Women in Free and Open Source
Most distribution have a women group. How about an openSUSE women group? Hence, women ambassadors? I know many women in France that I can approach on this matter.
Just my 2 cents :-)
Cheers,
Jimmy
PS. Enjoy some of the pics of last Saturday : http://www.nui.fr/linpha/viewer.php?albid=14&stage=1
We have women of openSUSE already. Send email to opensuse-women +subscribe@opensuse.org to join.
Bryen
Jimmy et al,
(sorry to hear about your car, Jimmy!)
Interesting idea - I'm in two minds about this; on the one hand, clearly we need to encourage women to use and participate in FOSS and openSUSE specifically; on the other hand, 'tokenism' (ie being included just becuase of your gender) and being treated as a minority group is something I find embarrassing. I want to be included because, well, I'm cool and I know stuff and do a good job, you know. Gender is pretty much irrelevant to me most of the time.
My experience so far of FOSS is one of unquestioning inclusiveness - "Oh you're starting a LUG? Cool, how can we help? We're having a chat on IRC, come join in...." Although someone on the marketing channel the other day mentioned some women even receiving threats for intruding on the 'boy's club'. So that was a surprise to me, and I was sorry to hear it.
Having said all that, given that it is a very male-dominated community, it's probably a good idea to have an avenue where women's concerns can be aired and we can talk about specific ways to appeal to women and to facilitate their involvement. I think Izabel Valverde might have something to say about this too, I hope, we had a brief chat the other day.
I think this ties in with the current interest in identifying our users and community. (I feel these two groups are distinct: users can become community....)
I'd certainly be willing to be involved.
Helen
On Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 7:41 AM, Jimmy Pierre jimmypierre.rouen.france@gmail.com wrote:
Greetings,
My report on SFD 2010 will be delayed because my car was vandalized last night. However, while waiting for the paperwork, I had this idea:
Women in Free and Open Source
Most distribution have a women group. How about an openSUSE women group? Hence, women ambassadors? I know many women in France that I can approach on this matter.
Just my 2 cents :-)
Cheers,
Jimmy
Moves to include women, or any other perceived minority, into the mainstream is always dicey, with affirmative action more often than not being considered as reverse discrimination. This program by GNOME [1][2], for example preferentially offers women paid internships, because they are women.
And openSUSE-Women was created to make openSUSE more inclusive and gender-neutral already, wasn't it? Is there really scope for another body/sub-organisation for the same apparent purpose?
[1] http://live.gnome.org/GnomeWomen/OutreachProgram2010 [2]http://live.gnome.org/GnomeWomen/OutreachProgram2010/SpreadTheWord
P.S. I feel there is too much of cross posting between the marketing and ambassador lists. Could there not be a clear demarcation of the lists' scope? just asking.
-- Koushik Kumar Nundy
http://kknundy.blogspot.com http://thinkbiosoln.com http://en.opensuse.org
Hey,
On Mon, Sep 20, 2010 at 6:57 PM, Koushik Kumar Nundy kknundy@gmail.com wrote:
Moves to include women, or any other perceived minority, into the mainstream is always dicey, with affirmative action more often than not being considered as reverse discrimination. This program by GNOME [1][2], for example preferentially offers women paid internships, because they are women.
And openSUSE-Women was created to make openSUSE more inclusive and gender-neutral already, wasn't it? Is there really scope for another body/sub-organisation for the same apparent purpose?
[1] http://live.gnome.org/GnomeWomen/OutreachProgram2010 [2]http://live.gnome.org/GnomeWomen/OutreachProgram2010/SpreadTheWord
P.S. I feel there is too much of cross posting between the marketing and ambassador lists. Could there not be a clear demarcation of the lists' scope? just asking.
-- Koushik Kumar Nundy
http://kknundy.blogspot.com http://thinkbiosoln.com http://en.opensuse.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-marketing+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-marketing+help@opensuse.org
AFAIK women-opensuse mailing list is not very active. I would agree with Helen to make women not a minority group but keep them full integrated.I understand some cultural issues can prevent some women to participate at the same places men do that's because women group come to be useful. Said so let's keep both channels quite open to make them choose what is more comfortable for women or let's them feel less intimidated. As I think women have an enormous computational potential I use to promote openSUSE among women in my country.
Hei Helen, Hello all,
I'm not sure if I would like to go through this kind of discussion...
We have several initiatives to make women feel confortable in FOSS or in any other IT issues. As developer in the past and as manager nowdays the only thing that I can say is: it's hard but wich profession isn't?!?
My best women group reference: http://libreplanet.org/wiki/Women%27s_Caucus after read you will see besides "Barriers to women's participation" we all looking for the same ideal!
Best,
Izabel
2010/9/20 Helen postmodernhousewife@gmail.com
Jimmy et al,
(sorry to hear about your car, Jimmy!)
Interesting idea - I'm in two minds about this; on the one hand, clearly we need to encourage women to use and participate in FOSS and openSUSE specifically; on the other hand, 'tokenism' (ie being included just becuase of your gender) and being treated as a minority group is something I find embarrassing. I want to be included because, well, I'm cool and I know stuff and do a good job, you know. Gender is pretty much irrelevant to me most of the time.
My experience so far of FOSS is one of unquestioning inclusiveness - "Oh you're starting a LUG? Cool, how can we help? We're having a chat on IRC, come join in...." Although someone on the marketing channel the other day mentioned some women even receiving threats for intruding on the 'boy's club'. So that was a surprise to me, and I was sorry to hear it.
Having said all that, given that it is a very male-dominated community, it's probably a good idea to have an avenue where women's concerns can be aired and we can talk about specific ways to appeal to women and to facilitate their involvement. I think Izabel Valverde might have something to say about this too, I hope, we had a brief chat the other day.
I think this ties in with the current interest in identifying our users and community. (I feel these two groups are distinct: users can become community....)
I'd certainly be willing to be involved.
Helen
On Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 7:41 AM, Jimmy Pierre jimmypierre.rouen.france@gmail.com wrote:
Greetings,
My report on SFD 2010 will be delayed because my car was vandalized last night. However, while waiting for the paperwork, I had this idea:
Women in Free and Open Source
Most distribution have a women group. How about an openSUSE women group? Hence, women ambassadors? I know many women in France that I can approach on this matter.
Just my 2 cents :-)
Cheers,
Jimmy
-- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-ambassadors+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-ambassadors+help@opensuse.org
-----Original Message----- From: Helen [mailto:postmodernhousewife@gmail.com] Sent: mardi 21 septembre 2010 00:20 To: opensuse-marketing@opensuse.org Cc: opensuse-ambassadors@opensuse.org Subject: [opensuse-ambassadors] Re: [opensuse-marketing] Women in Free and Open Source
I think this ties in with the current interest in identifying our users and community. (I feel these two groups are distinct: users can become community....)
Dear Helen,
Thanks very much for your kind email.
I run user groups since 1994 so the challenges are becoming mere formalities, but….
I totally agree with you about women being a minority in Linux. Should we men try to talk less in Geek language for starters? OK, we are busy, and when our wives ask for something, what I tend to do is not giving the attention that she deserves, but attempting to get hold of the keyboard or mouse and solve whatever the problem was. I do the same with my sister, friends and neighbours. Slap!
At SFD last Saturday, I was “jealous” because my wife attending at a wordpress workshop asked Denis (a NUI member) about themes? Why did she not ask me that question? In fact, she needed somebody to give her unbiased answer. Coming from a stranger rather than the husband, because she feared that asking *me* would make her feel stupid.
Is what follows not generic cases in everybody’s couple? In that, women may search for hours on how to do something on their computers? Because IT is our job, women would even just do something else or drop/forget their problem altogether rather than “disturbing” us with a “stupid” question? Is that because this or that is “obvious” to *us*? The male?
Is it not true that when having a meal with by coincidence some males (in IT) we tend to divert to X or Y in IT and women end up having their own conversation and we indulge in vCloud or whatever new technology?
Women have all sorts of clubs, sports, bingo, sewing, yoga, etc. They may have their own LUGs as well. In France, women started to vote in 1945 only. Their salaries are roughly 25% less than their male colleagues, on pension, they have other issues as well if they carried babies.
I felt very bad yesterday at the Police station while waiting to file a case for the vandalized new car. All the police officers at the counter were women and male officers were those who take your case up. I said, OK, I am in the UG business; I want to liberate women with Linux.
I can help them with logistics and advice, but what they do and how they do it should be their choice, at their own pace, their way!
I feel like buying them a domain name LinuxPourNousLesFemmes like the famous cosmetics advert Stop! What am I doing right now? I am even choosing their LUG name? Sorry!
Just my 2 cents.
Best, Jimmy
ambassadors@lists.opensuse.org
-
Bryen M. Yunashko -
Helen -
Izabel Valverde -
Jimmy Pierre -
Koushik Kumar Nundy -
RICARDO CHUNG